Dancing on Water: A Life in Ballet, from the Kirov to the ABT
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.24 (925 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1555537928 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 328 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-10-18 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
“The voice in the book is excellent company, as Tchernichova endures growing pains, backstage intrigues, and the shocks of emigration This book offers a fascinating portrait of a surprisingly open-minded ballet intellectual.”—Dance Magazine
Exquisitely written historical account of interest in the dance world and far beyond Lucky Reader I picked up this book because I was headed to Russia and wanted a taste of the country I was about to visit. I am not a dance person and honestly cannot appreciate ballet. But I LOVED this incredible gem of a book, and I can only imagine that would apply exponentially for someone who followed the ins and outs of the world of dance in these decades. This book is gorgeously written - the descriptions are so vivid and clever, they create a three-dimensional world and then linger in your mind pleasantly for time to come. The period cove. Don't let this wonderful view of the dance world pass you by. From first page to last this book carries the reader along. I personally could not put it down and was sorry when it ended.Elena's start in life was nothing short of tragic. Raised in starving, war-ravaged Leningrad, she had a neurotic mother who became an alcoholic and committed suicide when Elena was still a child. Afterwards, her grandmother -- illiterate, the daughter of serfs -- coped as well as she could, but it was a mother and daughter from the great Vaganova ballet school who became Elena's salvation by urging her to study . "One of the rare indispensable dance books" according to Ivy Lin. The list of must-read dance autobiographies is disappointingly short. Dancers are not necessarily the most articulate people, and their memoirs are often frustratingly opaque and unreflective. A happy exception is Elena Tchernichova's memoir. Maybe that's because her dance career was rather brief. Instead she spent most of her time as a coach, most famously during the Mikhail Baryshnikov era at the ABT. Tchernichova's childhood was unhappy. Her father was called in by the state police one day and never returned. Heartbroken and dist
Elena Tchernichova takes us from her childhood during the siege of Leningrad to her mother’s alcoholism and suicide, and from her adoption by Kirov ballerina Tatiana Vecheslova, who entered her into the state ballet school, to her career in the American Ballet Theatre.As a student and young dancer with the Kirov, she witnessed the company’s achievements as a citadel of classic ballet, home to legendary names—Shelest, Nureyev, Dudinskaya, Baryshnikov—but also a hotbed of intrigue and ambition run amok. Dancing on Water is both a personal coming-of-age story and a sweeping look at ballet life in Russia and the United States during the golden age of dance. As ballet mistress of American Ballet Theatre from 1978 to 1990, Elena was called “the most important behind-th